Twisted!

1. The twisted interview
If you were a piece of food found in Azeroth, what kind of food would that be? Please note the verb in this question: what food do I want to be, not serve. I was quite puzzled when Bre, one of the wonderful hosts of the Twisted Nether Blogcast, put it to me. I won’t spoil anything by telling you my answer on forehand. But I can tell you as much as that I didn’t settle for a sour goat cheese.

The interview was made a week ago and now you can hear it in episode 36 of TN. I haven’t yet assembled the courage to listen to myself yet, but I hope that they’ve cut me down a bit. I was surprised to see how much crap that came out of my mouth in an endless stream – I really ranted my heart away that night. I don’t know what came over me there, but I blame Bre – she’s just such a great person to run a conversation with – you never want to quit once you’ve started.

Anyway, it’s out in the ether, nether, whatever and there’s no return, no regrets. Thinking about those smart things you should have said is a bit pointless. So go ahead, download it if you want to hear the voice of your innkeeper and get to know me a little bit better. Don’t expect any insightful comments about the mage class. It’s rather the usual ramblings I’m serving.

2. The twisted gift
Talking to Bre felt kind of twisted. She isn’t an NPC, she exists for real! The other day I had similar twisted moment when I received a beautifully wrapped package from Japan. It looked just as exotic as you could imagine, with those strange signs all over the place and a paper with some Japanese flower pattern. Indeed it had taken a long journey, if not by caravans and ships, so not far from it. On the cover my name was printed, with the addition: “a.k.a. Larísa”. Then I knew.

This was a gift from a fellow blogger, the in every aspect awesome Ixobelle. A while ago I wrote something about how I wished that I was a bit better at the lore part of WoW and that I thought about reading some more Warcraft novels to improve my knowledge. Ixobelle noticed this and contacted me, offering me to take over a bunch of novels from his collection. He had read them and was happy to pass them on to someone else. The cost for sending the package probably was horrendous, but that didn’t bother him the slightest. I accepted his offer, but I had completely forgotten about it, so the books really took me by surprise when they turned up.

In one of the books was a handwritten note with a greeting from Ixobelle. I can assure you that he writes in a beautiful style, which really isn’t surprising. His posts often show signs of artistic talent, as when he presents ideas for new raid encounters.

Why did I find this package and the note so twisted? Well, It wasn’t only that it was sent from a land and a culture that I don’t quite understand (I imagine I would be quite as lost as Bill Murray was in Lost in Translation if I ever went there). I think it had to do with the fact that I had a piece of physical evidence of the existence of Ixobelle in the real world in my hand. Even though we only know each other in cyberspace, through our thoughts expressed as pixels, he is a person of flesh and blood just like me. If we only lived at the same continent it’s even possible that we could meet one day and have a beer, not in the Pink Pigtail Inn, but in a real pub. Through the book package we could at least pass a physical object from one hand to another. It’s really cool to think about it.

So thank you Ixobelle! You really made my day. I can’t wait to escape into Azeroth in offline mode.